Man accused of child rape arrested after bail revoked

A man accused of raping a minor girl was arrested after a sessions court revoked the interim pre-arrest bail granted to him.

Muhammad Rashid was booked for allegedly raping his father’s 10-year-old cousin within the remits of the Gulistan-e-Jauhar police station in March last year.

He appeared before Additional Sessions Judge Ilyas A Memon of the Special Gender-Based Violence Court (East) to seek confirmation of the bail granted to him on June 17.

The judge observed that as per the record, the investigation of the case had been completed as the final charge-sheet had been submitted with “positive findings showing that the accused had committed the alleged offence”.

He noted that the victim stood firm in her statement recorded under the Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and medical evidence supported the version of prosecution.

The judge said that another aspect of the case was that the accused remained an absconder for a couple of months.

“It is suffice to say that there is ample material available on record to connect the applicant/accused with the commission of alleged offence,” he said, ruling that under the present circumstances, the accused was not entitled for the concession of bail. The accused was then taken into custody and sent to prison.

According to the prosecution, the accused came to the victim’s house after her mother left for work on the morning of March 25, 2022. Finding her alone, he sexually abused her and fled the scene, it said.

Legal Aid Society’s lawyer Bahzad Akbar Gabol, who represented the complainant, argued that the victim’s statement as well as medical evidence fully implicated the accused in the heinous offence, which was against society and punishable with death or life imprisonment when a victim was minor or person with mental or physical disability. He pleaded with the judge to dismiss the accused’s bail plea.

On the other hand, the defence counsel contended that his client was innocent and had been falsely implicated in the present case, requesting the judge to grant him bail.

An FIR was lodged under the Section 376 (punishment for rape) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) at the Gulistan-e-Jauhar police station.